French Tigre hits rebels in Mali

A FRENCH Tigre attack helicopter has fired on a pickup truck containing jihadist fighters during clashes in rugged northern Mali, killing about 10 insurgents.

France's main military spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard said on Thursday the firefight a day earlier in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, near the Algeria border, came in the third day of an operation as French forces try to eliminate remnants of al-Qaida-linked fighters.

Burkhard said the operation, code-named Panther, is ongoing in the area, which French and Malian forces consider one of the remaining sanctuaries for the armed militant groups.

More than 20 insurgents and one French legionnaire died in similar clashes on Tuesday.